Dumb Criminals

Awareness is key. USA has done a good job in teaching its citizens that 911 is there for emergencies. Take this couple for instance. Nothing remarkable about them. The only thing he wanted was some cash to take his girlfriend on a date, plus a number of other items on his list that he is not in the mood to share with us. This boy chose to get the money by robbing a store. I don’t know whether he experienced any qualms about the modus operandi, but he certainly did not let those bother him on the date. On the way, their car broke down and the smart couple summoned 911, who not only helped them get their car on their way, but offered additional service by taking the boy in to ride with them free of charge to the Correction unit.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17482691?nclick_check=1
Robbery suspects dial 911 for roadside towing assistance!

Who said the serious business of life has no sense of humour?!

Time Will Tell

I am all for a little complexity in life. After all, that is what keeps us peppy and full of zing what? But I don’t understand how the time change twice a year is useful. Complex yes, but useful no. Probably in the days of yore if I’d been an old farmer’s daughter, and the extra hour of sunshine meant the difference between having water and milk as opposed to strawberries and cream for breakfast. Now, even if you fill me up to my eyes with daylight, I am not sure I am going to gorge out on those strawberries with the oh-so-sinful cream. So why do we still go about with this bother?

Why do I sound this piqued for something this normal and predictable? Well..it is the unpredicability of it all. You know how your computers automatically fall back an hour in the fall or spring forth an hour in spring? I expected my phone to do that too. It did.

I have the alarm set for a reasonable hour every morning on weekdays and what do you think the correct time showing cell-phone did to me? It rang an hour earlier than it was supposed to. Now, I am a great snoozer eh..snooze-presser. I love hitting snooze, but even I thought an additional hour of this encumbrance can ruin the joy of the early morning snooze because as with all regular snoozes, this cell phone does not allow you to indicate the time limit in which to remind you again. So, 10 minutes later, I will be fumbling again and then again in 10 minutes afterward. Exciting as mornings go, this doesn’t appeal to me very much when the clouds of sleep are still gathering around and singing me my lullabies. So, I dismissed the alarm and set a mental alarm to get up an hour later.

Only the agile mind sprang forward an hour like an over-zealous tiger making it two hours after the alarm went off. The scramble that ensued is not for the public eye to discern and dissect while shaking their heads in dismay, and has been withheld.

One news article claims setting it to airplane mode for a while helps. I may do that, but if I forget to set it back, will it still arouse me, or assume I am travelling by airplane and my fellow passengers deserve to sleep better and flip out on me again?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110314/ap_on_hi_te/us_iphone_glitch

Time will tell ….

Fear

Charlie Sheen seems to have spread himself thin with all the attention he is getting for himself. Not that I am a particular fan of his, but there is something disconcerting about how much people are interested in the life of the rich and the famous.

Here is an article written by Scott Adams on his dilbert.com/blog about Charlie Sheen.
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/charlie_sheen/
He went on to claim that he had the feeling he knew no fear. Which can explain some of the candidness, but also brings me neatly to the next new article about the couple who got themselves arrested for trying to instill a sense of fear in their unruly six year old.

http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/116709/parents_arrested_for_scaring_daughter?quick_picks=1&utm_medium=sem2&utm_source=outbrain&utm_campaign=outbrain&utm_content=outbrain_feb_test

The parents sought to frighten the child by taking her along to the police station and showing her what happens to bad people. I am not going to go into the merits and demerits of the case, but it seemed like a classic case of seeking out trouble.

Of course, reading about fear brought me to this news article that appeared a while ago, about a woman so fearless that nothing deterred her.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/17/fearless-woman-study.html

So, how much fear is good fear and necessary to bolster a crime-free society and how much too much or too little?

Or is the thing to fear fear itself?

Fire and Ice Appeal

The morning commute was an interesting one. One moment, there was silence and lackadaisical looks from fellow commuters who could not wait to get to their workspots. I was just wishing that something to brighten up the atmosphere would come up, when the very next station brought in mice, ducks, fairies and princesses. Though it is generally an argument (with merit) to say I hallucinate in the mornings, I kid you not. I saw them all. The squealing and the quacking breaking into the still silence of grumpy morning commuters was a very real one.

To one whose most interesting moment in the past week has been the fact that a building’s fire alarm system considered me a hot one, this was indeed something. Again, allow me to explain: I walked past the building and the buildings alarm went off
“WAHANANANNAANANANANANN”

I don’t suppose it is easy to jump up in alarm when one is walking at a steady 45 paces a minute, but I managed it with some difficulty. I restored the nerves from a-jingling, rectified the center of gravity and set off again (for those wondering why I did not do the noble act and help residents out in their time of crisis, the building seemed to be an empty one and not even the receptionist bothered to come out and check) So, I set off again and I had just crossed the perimeter of the building when the alarm stopped. So, I stepped back into the sidewalk right in front of the building and off it went again. The red hot fire alarm seemed to be whistling itself crazy – See?
This morning, a little boy mouse came and sat next to me, I questioned him where he was going dressed up like a mouse, and he grinned and said they were going to watch the Disney on Ice show and that was why it was particularly important to dress up like the characters. “Where are you going?” he asked.
I told him that I wished I could go to the Disney on Ice show too, but I was going to office.

“You can come with me too. You can sit and watch Mickey with me.” he said blushing deeply while his mother looked on and smiled. He then blushed a little harder, looking a deep fire alarm red and said, “We could have ice cream together there.”

A pre-schooler and a building. What can I say about my charm?

I would have gone, but the building might miss me.

Logarithmic-Linear-Logarithmic

When the daughter was younger and had yet to start going to a classroom atmosphere, the father asked her to lift her right leg. Being the loving grand-daughter, she did. Then he asked her to lift her left leg and she obliged, by stamping the right foot down and lifting the other. Not satisfied with the legs, he started in with the little arms and asked for the left arm. Then the right arm, and both arms together. (Luckily, we have only 2 arms and 2 legs, for this gripping tale would have had us spouting steam otherwise.)

Having seen all this, he asked her to lift both legs together, to which she hardly spent a moment thinking and simply lay down on the floor and lifted both legs looking like a very adorable pup waiting to be tickled by the owner.

Fast forward to a time when formal schooling did start and the same exercise has her thinking about the problem and saying, “But the only way to do that is jump and see if we can fly!”

What makes me remember this you ask. A book I was reading recently: It spoke about how some tribes know not the notion of time or numbers. (They don’t need either concept for their survival.) This book actually has remarkable powers, because it has enabled me to forget the title and clean swiped the power of resurrecting the title from the dark crevices of the brain.

Anyway, according to the author, who spent many happy months among the tribes, Piraha Tribe in Amazon, trying to observe and study their behavioral patterns, he noticed something. When given a series of dots and told to plot them on a number scale between 1 and 10, the tribes with no formal introduction to numbers placed the numbers closer together as they approached 10, and farther and farther apart near 1 and 2. Their natural instincts were to think logarithmically.

A study that coincided with how kindergartners plotted their numbers. Basically, the tribes and the children saw the combination of dots as the pattern. Two dots together doubles the area of one dot, but 9 dots clustered together is only marginally smaller than 10 dots together.

But as these kindergartners approached second grade, they plotted the numbers from 1 to 10 evenly spaced on the number line. We move away from a more complex method of thinking logarithmically naturally to thinking linearly, and then relearn the logarithmic concept later in life.

It is a fact that structured thinking has its benefits, but I often wonder how different we would be if we were allowed to retain our ability to think with out being clouded by what is taught to us.

Edit: Relevant links:

Piraha tribe

Kindergartener Number Study

 

Mourning for books

I read the sad news that Borders declared bankruptcy this morning and it plans on closing the store in my small town. Now, I am depressed. First Barnes & Nobles closed, and now Borders. A co-worker asked me in concern if everything was okay because I looked so shocked and unhappy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/borders-book-chain-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-with-1-29-billion-debt.html

That leaves no bookstores in my town. My family outings revolve around going to the bookstore and reading up with coffee and buying some book(s) almost every visit. The smell of the books excite me and that brings me to e-books.

I own a kindle, but I must confess, the few books I have on my device do not hold the kind of dearness to my heart that books made of paper hold. For one, when I read a good book, I like the essence of the book to linger for a while. I like to randomly open up pages and just immerse myself into the world again. I don’t like to have to search for a page and then go there. That feels too calculated – not the kind of lovely-aunt-dropping-by for a surprise visit anymore.

As I glance upon my bookcase, each object has a personality. A unique one. I know when the heart will start to feel a-flutter in each object. I know when I am just meandering through for laughs. Each books personality is there for me to savour, to go back to anytime I want to.

But I find all of those feelings missing in the E-books. I know a number of my friends who have adapted easily to the e-books and swear by them. For me, the charm simply isn’t there, and that means that I am losing out on a big part of what I term enjoyable with the e-crusade.

As my daughter and I meander through the shelves picking out books to read, I wonder, how I will recreate this feeling of being together in the E-world. Browsing for them doesn’t feel the same.

I feel lost.

Valentine Cockroaches

My college days found me staying in what roughly can be called a ‘hostel’. Only it wasn’t. It was a house that converted into shared lodgings for 30 odd girls. There is a whole saga of my life there in that hostel that would simply take up reams of space. Dining in the place was a simple problem. We had asked one of the messes nearby to bring us our food to the tin shed that doubled up as our dining hall.

I have often wondered how these eateries got the name, ‘Mess’, and it dawns on me that it is probably the mess that is all around that contributes to the name. Anyway, this particular mess that served our food was not the best, it certainly wasn’t the most hygienic. One day, as we were sitting with the sambar floating in our plates over the rice, one of my friends asked me to check whether the red chilli in the sambar looked red chilli enough. I gave her a feverish look. That day was one of the days, I was genuinely hungry and the watery sambhar even looked savory from a distance. It wasn’t as brick reddish as usual and I was rather looking forward to it. I gave her a look of disdain that was entirely lost on her. She was too busy staring into her plate. So, I joined the band of observers and it did seem a little strange that the red chilli should have sprouted little feet and arms. There were distinctly there.
“Maybe, the chilli split in that odd manner.” I said unconvincingly, only to have my co-observers give me a look of disdain. What goes around comes around I tell you.

And so it was that despite my best intentions to believe otherwise, the offender was classified as a cockroach. UGH!

In other news,Valentine’s Day is here, and the daughter is all a-twitter. I have been asked several times what I consider to be the most important day of February. There is love in the air. This time, with all the attention this day is getting in her life, I thought it a rather bright idea to see what is it that other folks were getting the loves of their lives. The roses and the chocolates I knew, but what I did not know was this….

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110211/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_valentine_cockroaches;_ylt=AqHiIYNehXxlvYRA3zuFdHvtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTMzc2EyY2hiBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwMjExL291a29lX3VrX3ZhbGVudGluZV9jb2Nrcm9hY2hlcwRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3JvYWNoZXNhcmVmbw–

Here is a gift – I don’t know if any, but die-hard naturalists would consider the gift romantic, but there it is. The chance to name one of the species of cockroaches for now and ever more is the Valentine’s Day Gift.

Given that the creatures do not kindle any loving instincts in me – in fact the only images they kindle in me are those watery sambhar images, I think I’ll pass.

Modern Philosophers Stone

While the alchemists of yore spent their days figuring out the ultimate method of turning copper into Gold, it seems to me that modern alchemists will be better rewarded if they were to spend time finding the weight cure – the ultimate food source that can miraculously keep our muscles toned and our cholesterol healthy, no matter what we eat, how much we eat and where we eat. The ideal concoction will allow us to wallow like sloths and look and feel like cats. Recently, Dr. Oz proclaimed on the Oprah show that African Mango is probably the best bet for weight loss. Could it be the Philosopher’s Stone for Weight Loss?

http://www.post-sentinel.com/

Now all we need is for a food magnate to take 1 gm of African mango and juice it up with 98 gms of sugar and proclaim to the world that 16 oz of this at and between meals will keep you slim and healthy for the rest of your life, unless you develop diabetes before that.

That is what seems to have happened to good old popcorn. The lovely snack to pop at the movie theatre, till theatres decided this should happen.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/popcorn/

Small portion size – GOOD, big portion size – BAD!

Sneeze Freeze

The past week has been rough. The nose acted up and sneezed its way through nights and what should have been tasty meals.

I remember someone telling me during my highly impressionable youth that if you stared at a bright light when you feel like sneezing, the sneeze will freeze midway through. So, you can go back to normal from a eyes-puckered-stomach-clutched-eyes-watering stance to a normal one without even sneezing. It has happened once or twice and always makes me laugh. So, I spent one morning staring at the Sun every few minutes. After this enlightening experience, I tottered into the home partially blind only to bang into sofas and chairs placed in my path while sneezing just as hard as before.

Imagine then, how special I felt when I saw the world took note of my misery and decided to have a program on National Public Radio about sneezing.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/07/133499190/what-ah-choo-can-do-for-you

I smiled through my sneezes the whole way through. Apparently, there are some folks who seem to react with sneezes at unexpected stimuli – like while eating mint. Throw something like this at me, and I had to try. I popped some mint into my mouth to see whether I would sneeze more, but as it turns out, I belong to the category who does not sneeze at mints. In fact, I seemed to belong to the category that stifled sneezes with mint. I laughed – a deep, villainous laugh at my system. I scoffed at the sneezes that I paralyzed within me using the simple method of having couple of mints, and boarded my train.

Usually mints are supposed to keep you fresh and awake. But the sudden stoppage in the sneezing, meant my body saw this as perfect opp. to catch a snooze and before I knew it, I was dozing with a minty freshness that little things like railway announcements could not tap me out of. I slept clean past my station, and spent the fresh morning hours grumpily waiting on an alien platform, waiting for a train to chug in – in the opposite direction. When something like this happens, the world suddenly seems to set itself in slow motion. I spent the precious moments musing all the while that if a sneeze out of my system can make it at 40 mph, why can’t I feel like I am getting somewhere at that speed?

The article ends on this enigmatic note
“Want to stifle a sneeze? It’s possible, Meltzer says. Just press hard on the bridge of your nose.”

I just might have my nose in a bandage when you see me next, but you know why.

Privacy & Security

Facebook has a method of making even the initiatives geared towards privacy awkward. I just realised that when you created a group and called it something, it emails folks you added to the group telling them exactly what you did. So, if I have a group of folks who I choose to classify as ‘Casual acquaintances’, they get an email saying “You have been added to ‘Casual acquaintances’ by ‘nourishncherish'”. Sometimes, casual acquaintances don’t have qualms but there are folks there who aren’t casual about slights such as these especially when you spoke so warmly to them every time those 3 times you met them in the last five years.

One automatically cannot have creative groups such as ‘I used to sock them at football’ or ‘Steer clear of’, not that people do, but they may wish to. And that is my point, you can’t tell people that you are adding them to a classification. You have the classifications and you use them, but don’t tell them.

I can’t imagine the number of issues this kind of thing can wreak in the lives of high schoolers for instance. Just imagine what happens when ‘Best friends’ and ‘Close friends’ compare notes at your party?

I don’t know if there already are, but it may just be a good idea to have some sociologists ponder over the technical designs before implementing them.

While we are busy discussing the privacy settings, Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s fan page was hacked into yesterday.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/25/5916863-mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-fan-page-hacked

I can’t imagine the security team’s pressure now!